


Boogeyman

by CryptidBae



Category: Alien vs Predator (2004), Fire and Stone (Comics), Predators (2010)
Genre: Ahab is too cute to be the boogeyman, Ahab is trying her best, Galgo Helder is a good father, M/M, Why the fucks do parents scare their kids with the boogeyman?, Yautja males don't interact a lot with their children, self beta read, that's shitty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 21:04:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17454293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryptidBae/pseuds/CryptidBae
Summary: Ahab and Galgo have been together for a while, now it is time for Ahab to meet Galgo's daughter. Things could have started out better but hey! at least there is no shadow monster trying to steal children.Also known as: two times Ahab was mistaken for the boogeyman and two times someone took the time to explain what a boogeyman is.





	Boogeyman

_August 12th, 2222. 6:30 PM. Earth central time._

Galgo had to admit, there were many things that could go wrong with his plan to introduce Ahab and Alba. Still, he was naive enough to think it would work

A certain percentage of the ways in which the plan could fail was his fault, Galgo knew that. Alba was too young and he should have taken the time to explain to his daughter that his ‘friend’ was not just ‘a little different’ like Galgo had said through the comms while Alba was on her way to the new ship captained by Angela.  But in his defense, Galgo wanted Ahab and Alba to meet as soon as possible. He didn't want to give anyone time to give Alba their unsolicited two cents about Galgo's ‘roommate’.

That was the reason why right when the much smaller ship that brought the crew's families to visit arrived, Galgo picked Alba and her luggage up and headed to his quarters.

“I want to say hello to tita Angela.”

Don't take him wrong, Galgo trusted Angela would never talk shit about him with his daughter present. She could be a bitch sometimes, but Angela was still too good to do something like that. Still, Galgo had been the victim of a lot of teasing about his  _strong bond_ with Ahab, and he feared that one of those jokes would slip from Angela in front of Alba and he would later have a lot of explaining to do.

“I'll take you to say hello to her later, monita,” Galgo promised, kissing the top of Alba's head. “First, I want you to meet my friend.”

“Is his name really Ahab?” Galgo nodded at her question and his brow rose in question as he felt Alba practically press her lips to his ear and whisper. “Like the captain with the whale.”

Galgo laughed. Sometime before Alba turned four years old, Galgo had taken her with him to his parents’ place in Spain. It had been her first night so far away from her mother and it had scared her, which had led to Galgo sitting by her side, waiting for her to fall asleep again. Alba had asked for a bedtime story and, not having any other book around, Galgo had spent a whole month worth of nights reading Moby-Dick from beginning to end. But it had been a secret. Galgo knew that if Alba's mother would kill him if she found out that Galgo's idea of a bedtime story was a book with ‘Dick’ in its title. Galgo wanted to leave at least long enough to threaten Alba's first boyfriend, so he had convinced Alba to keep it a secret, not the best lesson he could teach his daughter, but Galgo really didn't want to be murdered.

He was surprised she still remembered that book and that she was supposed to keep the secret.

The closer they got to the room, the slower Galgo walked. He could only compare the nerves he was feeling with what he had felt once when he was a child, his sister had brought a cat to the house and Galgo had to help her introduce it to their dog.

_I am sure this will go better than that,_ Galgo told himself in an attempt to relax. This time it was not a dog and a cat. Alba was not going to be brutally devoured by Ahab and Galgo wouldn't have to see Ahab be put down for aggressive behavior.

“Okay, are you ready?” Galgo asked Alba, who nodded with enthusiasm.

Galgo almost hoped for her to say no.

The door slid open and Galgo covered Alba's eyes until he was sure the quarters were child-friendly. Ahab had a lot of skills around the room and Galgo had asked for him to hide them until Galgo sat Alba down to explain that one of Ahab’s hobbies, or more like his lifestyle, was hunting. Alba also had some hobbies that were considered weird for a six years old, but Galgo was sure that collecting dissected starfish and bugs, and having a pet tarantula named Gulliver in honor to another character from a book Galgo had secretly read to her, did not mean that she would appreciate the too human-like engineer's skull that Ahab had turned into their table decoration.

‘We're here,” Galgo called, putting Alba down and letting her look around.

Ahab emerged from their room a minute later and stayed by the doorway. Galgo watched them observe each other without saying a word. Ahab tilted his head at the sight of the girl, she looked slightly like Galgo, but her eyes were dark and her hair, even though it was as dark as Galgo's, was curly and tied in two low pigtails; she also had little dark dots all over her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

Alba stared intently at Ahab, then at her father, then back at Ahab before she walked towards Galgo and made grabby hands up at him so he would pick her up, which Galgo obviously did. Alba then pressed her face to his neck.

“Is he the boogeyman?” Alba's voice came out as a whisper. Probably believing the one she just called ‘boogeyman’ wouldn't be able to hear her. But Ahab had really good hearing.  
  
-  
  
_August 30th, 2222. 3:35 AM. Earth central time._  


Things were going great and Galgo was relieved. He did have to stop himself from cursing like he usually did. But Ahab and Alba were slowly but surely getting used to each other. Ahab had even been able to put his trophies back around the living room. So things were good and peaceful.

Until the night that Alba woke them up screaming in fear for her father and Galgo remembered that he had left the closet door open when he went in after Alba fell asleep to grab some extra blankets because he and Ahab had left the room to Alba and Ahab hated how cold the living room was.

Ahab had the best intentions when he stormed into the room spear in hand, intentions which were to massacre whatever had dared to go near the child. But being scared and having an over seven feet tall reptilian creature barge in armed didn't help.

“the boogeyman is here!” Alba cried.

Galgo tried to go into the room, but Ahab stopped him. Ahab moved to check the closet, closing its door before continuing to search for this boogeyman he kept being mistaken for. Galgo sat by Alba's side and did his best to calm her down.

Some time passed before Alba agreed to get out from under the covers to instead hold onto her father tightly and scratch Galgo's beard. For some reason, touching his beard always helped her calm down. Galgo feared that the day would come when Alba no longer found comfort in running her hands through his face.

“No boogeyman will come for you,” Galgo reassured her, rubbing Alba's back gently. “Look at Ahab, you've seen his trophies. Boogeymen are cowards. If they are scared of me, that means they will be terrified of Ahab. They won't come as long as he's here.”

That's how Galgo and Ahab returned to their room because there was no way Alba was going back to sleep if she wasn't one hundred percent sure Ahab was in the room.  
  
-  
  
_September 1st, 2222. 4:51 PM. Earth central time._  


Galgo had to leave along with Angela and a group of others for a rescue mission. Nothing dangerous, Ahab would not have allowed Galgo to go without him if that had been the case. Just a group of teenagers who stole a small ship and ran out of fuel.

With Galgo gone, Ahab had stayed in charge of Alba, who now that she knew Ahab was a ‘professional monster hunter’, -Galgo's words-, liked Ahab a lot more.

The other children on the ship though… well, Alba didn't care if they liked her new friend because she knew for a fact Ahab was awesome. Awesome enough to be immortalized by her with crayons, which were being supplied by Ahab depending on which color she asked for while they say in the ship's recreation room, being left alone by everyone else.

“I need black and red,” she said, taking her time to admire her drawing while Ahab found the aforementioned colors and handed them to her. “I am going to draw you fighting the boogeyman.”

Ahab tried to get a look at the bogeyman, but Alba scolded him for trying to ‘spy’ on her drawing, stating that he was not supposed until and only when she was done.

“What's the boogeyman?”

Alba stopped drawing and Ahab was able to see what she was drawing before she covered the paper with her arms: an indescriptible black shape with two red dots that Ahab guessed were its eyes.  
  
“You don't know?” the child asked. Ahab answered by shaking his head. “The boogeyman is a monster, it hides where it's dark and steals kids from their beds. Adults can scare it away. But my cousins said that they don't always scare it in time.”

Focusing back on her drawing, Alba finished painting the red-eyed shape before handing the paper to Ahab. “Do you like it?”

Ahab nodded his head. He definitely liked the way Alba had drawn him defeating the boogeyman, though Ahab would make sure that the creature would suffer a lot before killing it once he caught it.  
  
-  
  
_September 4th, 2222. 12:30 PM. Earth central time._

If there was something Galgo was not expecting to find as part of the mess under their bed, that was definitely the yautja version of a bear trap.

He was lucky enough that the victim of said trap was not one of his hands. But the loss was still deeply felt because the trap closed around one of Galgo's favorite combat boots, leaving Galgo with only pieces of the shoelaces in hand. Galgo was happy that Angela had taken Alba to spend the evening with her because he was finally able to curse as much and as loud as his heart desired before calling for Ahab.

“You lizard!” he was able to hear Ahab growl from the living room at being called a lizard. “Yeah, I am talking to you. Come here!”

Galgo pulled the trap from under the bed, yelling curses at the air when he got to see just how bad the damage to his boot was. When Ahab walked into the room, Galgo snapped.

“What the fuck is this?! Are you trying to kill me?” Galgo threw the ruined boot at Ahab, who dodged it without effort, rolling his eye at his mate's reaction to a little trap. “Don't roll your eye at me! What if it had been Alba?!”

“She knew it was there.”

She knew? Why did Alba know there was a trap under the bed? Why the fuck was there a trap under the bed in the first place?! Galgo was about to resume his symphony of curses when an unconscious glance at the closet opened his eyes to the truth. Stuck to the closet door was a drawing, it depicted a yautja fighting against something, an indescribably shaped, shadow-like creature with red eyes.

The boogeyman.

Ahab went from being annoyed by Galgo's yelling and cursing to being completely confused when out of nowhere, his mate started laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes. Galgo tried to stand up, but his laughter made his legs feel weak and he had to hold onto the nightstand in order to push himself up to sit on the bed.

His ribs hurt by the time Galgo was done laughing. He looked in Ahab's direction, wiping his tears before motioning for Ahab to come closer and sit beside him. They had to have a talk.

“So, you’re trying to hunt the boogeyman.” Galgo clasped a hand over his own mouth and bot the inside of his cheek to avoid breaking into laughter again. It was all too good to be true. “Let me guess, Alba told you that it hides under the bed.”

“And in the closet and dark corners.” Ahab nodded. “But I can't put traps in the corners with a pup around.”

Galgo made a mental more to avoid opening the closet until he was sure that it was yautja traps-free zone.

“Ahab,” Galgo started, taking a deep breath to avoid laughing. “What do you think is the boogeyman?”

Ahab pointed at Alba's drawing and Galgo took a moment to study the drawing. The yautja was definitely Ahab. Alba had taken her sweet time to make sure it looked like him, from the skull on his chest armor piece to the missing upper mandible and eye. The other figure -Galgo remembered- was exactly like his ex-wife's annoying sister told her sons that the boogeyman looked like.

“You can't hunt the boogeyman, Ahab,” Galgo chuckled, lying back on the bed and rising his hands as a way to motion for Ahab to let him continue speaking before getting offended by what Galgo just said. “The boogeyman is not real.”

“What?”

“It's not real. It's a story that bad parents that don't know how to educate their kids tell them so they'll behave,” Galgo explained. “It's a threat: if you're bad, the boogeyman will eat you.”

The reaction Galgo got was not what he was expecting. Ahab looked down at the ground in disappointment, he almost looked upset.

“What's wrong? I thought you would be happy to know that no monster is coming to eat Alba.” Galgo sat up and nudged Ahab with his shoulder. “Come on, big guy. If it's because I called you a lizard, I didn't mean it. You know that I lo-”

“I wanted to kill it,” Ahab finally spoke, looking at Galgo and letting him see that Ahab was actually upset. “So Alba would see me as part of your pack.”

Right, yautja considered human family units packs. Galgo smiled, patting Ahab's knee.

“You see that drawing?” Galgo motioned to the closet door. “She drew you defeating the creature she fears the most.”

Ahab's eye went wide in realization. Galgo couldn't help but laugh. Ahab was a master hunter and an expert when it came to reading others, no matter if they were his opponents or just someone that happened to be in his line of vision. But it was clear that he had no experience when it came to children.

“You are already an honorable member of our ‘pack’.” Galgo made quotations marks with his fingers. “That’s if an adult human, a child, and a yautja can be considered a pack.”

Before Galgo could say anything else, Ahab's arms wrapped around him and Galgo found himself with his face pressed to Ahab's chest. Yautja purring was one of the best things about their relationship. Galgo could feel the vibrations caused by how hard Ahab was purring,  which was interrupted just when Ahab spoke up again.

“Our pack.”


End file.
